These hypothetical right-wing assassins would have to kill Pelosi exactly at 11:59 a.m. on January 20th to stop the House from appointing another Democratic Speaker before Trump’s term ended
8 Likes
I’d post something here but I’m 1-3 with political posts lately. Ah the hell with it!
OF COURSE HE DID! They are his base regardless of what they do.
I almost wish there was a reason to fear for the lives of Trump and Pence.
However I am sure some of their wacko fanboys believe that Black feminazi antifa assassins are already out to get them.
That’s probably why the white house is building a non-scalable fence. And definitely not because Trump is not planning to leave the White House after they lost the election.
That is mostly because the constitution is fundamentally broken when it comes to representation, and if this is not remedied, it will only get worse.
By 2040, 70% of Americans will live in the 15 largest states. That means 70% of America will be represented by only 30 senators, while the other 30% of America will be represented by 70 senators.
There there is zero interest from Republicans to change that, because that would effectively remove them from power. So the Democrats would need a majority that allows them to change the constitution all by themselves. Why the Democrats won’t make this their one main issue is beyond me, because that is the leverage for sustainably implementing a progressive agenda.
The above quote is taken from this article:
FWIW, it appears that FBI is investigating the incident.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/01/politics/fbi-investigating-biden-bus-trump/index.html
8 Likes
(As a non-American) I honestly don’t see a problem with that. The whole point of the senate is that it represents the interests of the state governments at a federal level. That’s perfectly legitimate. The problem is that in addition to that you also weigh the popular vote by state through the incredibly undemocratic electoral college. The combination of the two is what gives an unfair advantage to rural states.
No, just before they can get into the chamber and call the vote. There isn’t at present any automatic succession to the Speakership. If memory serves, there’s also a quorum requirement to name a new one.
I admit this scenario is far-fetched. The window between November 4 and December 14 is less so - if Biden buys the farm during that period, then there’s a near-certainty that the Electoral College will split the Democratic vote between the dead Biden (in some states, it appears that electors are required to vote for their pledged candidate, dead or alive!) and Harris, throwing the election to the House. The constitutional provision that the ‘vice-president-elect becomes president’ holds only if there is a vice-president-elect, which doesn’t happen until December 14, and possibly not until January 6 when the electoral ballots are counted.
“Every accusation a confession.”
Because a constitutional amendment requires the assent of 3/4 of state leglslatures - which means that you have to get far more than half of the red states to go along with you. Heck, two years ago, the Republicans were within a couple of states of being able to slam-dunk constitutional amendments by calling a constitutional convention (which 3/4 of the states can do without the assent of Congress). The 2018 election flipped a bunch of them.
It would likely still be called Assault with a Deadly Weapon with Intent to Kill or Inflicting Serious Injury (ADWIKISI), AKA Attempted Murder. Makes no difference that you in fact were attempting to kill a different target because your infliction of serious injury or intent to kill transfer to the person that you actually seriously injured or tried to kill.
2 Likes
They are still working to suppress the vote, in part by letting a pandemic that disproportionately impacts people of color more, who tend to lean towards the democratic party, as a voting bloc.
My POINT is that many of the people in those states you propose we just abandon include democratic voters.
But hey, if we were REAL good people, we’d move to a blue state, right? /s
10 Likes
I do. A state’s representation should be proportional to that state’s population, especially if each and every law has to pass in the senate.
2 Likes
But you can’t be a federation of states if the states don’t have representation at the federal level. This isn’t a states rights dogwhistle by the way, I hope it doesn’t come across as one.
1 Like
The Senate has become problematic as political and demographic conditions on the ground changed. This U.S. is no longer a collection of states with roughly similar populations as it was at the start, and the role of the Senate in representing the interests of state governments has to change accordingly.
The best proposal I’ve heard is to have the Senators vote with the Reps as a single body, perhaps giving their votes slightly more weight. The interests of the states are still represented at the federal level, just not in the currently grossly distorted way.
That, combined with getting rid of the Electoral College (or reforming it to the point where it’s a completely different mechanism) would better reflect the popular will of the nation.
9 Likes
you can’t be an effective federation of states if 70% of the population only gets 30% of the representation.
10 Likes
It’s not a good idea to have 2 senators for one state, whether it has 500.000 (WY) residents or 40.000.000 (CA). That is a factor of 80 between the weight a single vote. That is not democratic at all.
Germany is a federal republic that does this a bit differently: it limits the issues where the federated states are involved, and it has a somewhat fairer way of representing states according to the number of residents.
4 Likes
His beliefs were strong, they were just twisted once the vector of his second wife arrived. Blue-collar workers, including ones smart enough to be union organisers, are understandably susceptible to the protectionist rhetoric of populists. In the best circumstances, they turn their ire on the business owners and executives who send jobs overseas or who hire undocumented immigrants. But expose them to Faux News and the rest of the racist conservative mighty Wurlitzer and they can quickly turn that ire on what they should see as their partners in labour solidarity.
It’s an old right-wing populist divide-and-conquer tactic. When we ask “how does a liberal democracy go fascist?” this is always part of the answer.
12 Likes
Thank you for sharing hat story! I know how you feel.
This is a good framing. I think for my dad it has been guns and Facebook. He first tried Facebook as a way to stay in touch with me and my sister. The rest of us left Facebook when the evilness of it became clear. He stayed. He always liked guns as a hobby. He used to hunt, but stopped because he didn’t want to kill animals anymore. That’s what a softie he is deep down. He enjoys target shooting now. Then FB sent him down a gun rights propaganda rabbit hole and he became one of those people who yell at you at the dinner table about the second amendment preventing tyranny. The crazy thing is, he’s not American and doesn’t live in America. None of that nonsense even applies to him. But he’s trapped in that bubble now and I can’t figure out how to get him out. He was a sweet guy before Facebook broke him.
One thing about your story that struck me was the labor part. I’ve been shocked at how working class union people are now all voting for the rulers who want to destroy them. How did this happen?!
12 Likes
YES. It is a giant question mark for me, too. I have questioned my dad DIRECTLY about this. I have said, “But Trump and the Republicans are against EVERYTHING that you fought for in the 80’s and 90’s. Remember what Reagan did? Don’t you believe in labor unions anymore? Trump is trying to destroy them!” And my dad just dodges. That’s why I go into describing it all as a Zombie affliction. It cannot be reasoned with. It is such a strong force of hate that it tramples any former belief systems. And I, for my part, fail to empathize with it. I do not have, or want, that lens to the world. I also throw up my hands because I really don’t know how to deal with it other than just not talking to him that often.
+1 to @gracchus for that observation on how labor types can be twisted into populism and then into fascism. I like that analysis because it rings true.
9 Likes
Another thing that right-wing populists like to stir up amongst blue-collar workers in addition to racism is anti-intellectualism and jingoism. This is a classic example:
8 Likes
How do senators elected by popular vote represent the interests of state governments?
2 Likes
When I went back to school, I went into advertising. I was very good at it, and it was evil. After one year, I moved over to communications, because it was the study of how and why the advertising worked. I could quote all my textbooks on communications campaigns and why this stuff works, but it would be tedious for everyone. Let’s just leave it at marketers market to specific demographics, and use specific framings to make people accept new ideas and new products.
Fox is Very Very Good at Marketing. They picked their market, and they’re shoveling specific framing of specific ideas down the throats of middle America. The idea runs like this:
Remember how things were better back in the Olden Days? Well, we can go back to that but with embracing today's technologies and continuing the capitalistic consumer culture because We're Number One!
[except in Comic Sans.]
For a lot of people, that’s an ideal, not an idea. They see an asshole with money who is able to break rules and live large, and maybe if they support him, somehow they’ll magically get that kind of life, because they’re not that much of an asshole, so they deserve it. If people on TV say so, it must be true.
The targeted messages go down easy, and bit by bit they go from casually racist to full-on xenophobe, or from seasonal hunter to militia member. They’re specifically designed to inflame and incite, and even though they’ve be shown to be opinion not news, they still have the word in their title.
11 Likes
A voter in Wyoming has 67 times as much influence in the Senate as a voter in California. This has several major downsides in a government based on the idea of a democratic republic. For example:
- The Senate as a whole will tend to focus on the needs of a minority of Americans to the exclusion of the needs of the majority.
- A Senator in Wyoming will have enough time to actually meet with everyday constituents on a fairly regular basis, whereas a Senator in California will have to have to prioritize who they can meet with. In effect this means any California Senator who wants to raise enough money to stay competitive in the next election will spend most of their time meeting well-funded interests and rich donors instead of average constituents.
Right now the distribution of power is such that United States Senate is a better representation of America’s livestock than its citizens.
10 Likes
If it ever did that, it does not do that anymore. The Senate is not a little United Nations where state governments send ambassadors. It functions just like the House of Representatives except that Rhode Island and Delaware have the same influence as California and Texas.
It’s a grievous mistake in the Constitution, and we’re stuck with it because states like Rhode Island and Delaware benefit from it and it can’t be changed without their permission.
5 Likes
